Research is proposed to contribute to the development of quantitative models of information processing by the auditory system. The work is aimed towards a general statistical decision theory formulation which could predict both receiver operating characteristics and psychometric functions for many binaural and monaural psychoacoustic experiments. Both the theoretical and experimental work derive from considerations of the functional form of the operations presumed to be carried out by the receiver, the nature of the (necessary) assumptions regarding the structure and role of 'internal' (biological) noise, neurophysiological interpretations, adaptive (learning) effects of choice of decision strategies by individual listeners, and nonsensory variables such as attention and memory. Specific experiments are proposed in relation the the above.